HomePod May Support Multiple User Accounts and HomeKit Scenes That Mute Siri

[sofila]

In which case, what you need is an Airport Express to let your Macs and iDevices stream to your HiFi, not a Homepod. Plus, that avoids the creepy always-on mic thing - but if you really want that, any iDevice can potentially do the Siri thing.

And that's what I did. With iTunes on a PC too. I'll check Homepod for eventually having sound in other rooms. But, having been disappointed with Sonos' sound, I want to have a real field test before the purchase.

 

[Dave245]

On my screen, the caption at the top of the video says
"Apples Cook Says Homepod's Quality will Blow..."

(F'nar, F;nar, yuk, yuk, oink!)

The title of the video is "Tim Cook says Homepod's quality will blow people away" but a short abbreviation could show it as that 😀

My point was that the software of the HomePod will probably have new features added via future updates, maybe new Siri updates at WWDC.

 

[cardfan]

That's not the point. There are three different business models at work here:

Apple make consumer electronic products. Theuy buy advertising to promote their core business of selling those products (that's exactly what you've just said). The services they offer (music, video etc.) are primarily designed to sell iPhones, iPads and watches.

Google sell advertising and customer data. The - mostly free - services they offer to consumers are primarily designed to gather that data and deliver that advertising. Their hardware products are primarily designed to promote their services.

Amazon are a retailer selling everything from aardvark husbandry supplies to zombie costumes. Their computing products are primarily designed to promote and sell Amazon retail products (and are often heavily subsidised loss-leaders).

(Microsoft - as far as I can tell - have a business model based on the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in which their most profitable division is the complaints department. Their products seem mainly designed to annoy people for no obvious benefit to either the customer or the company. Share and Enjoy 🙂 )

...now, yes, there is some convergence here: both Amazon and Apple are moving in on Google's turf to some extent, and both Amazon and Google have been tentatively seeing if they can get double-bubble by selling their ad delivery systems at premium prices and still coin it in from ads and data gathering... but they're still clearly coming from three different directions.

Yep, but what should concern Apple fans is that Apple's services kinda suck. I'd argue its the software/hardware integration that sells apple devices. Connectivity between apple iOS devices and Macs.

AI? Apple trails. Your basics like photos? It's a mess. Email? It's google all the way. Maps? google. Office? MS. Music? Apple figures here but only because they're focused on it. Education? Dude, you're getting a chromebook.

At least I can run all those above 3rdc party services on iOS or macs which saves the day. We get the wonderful device integration, software/hardware magic that only apple has that the competition blows chunks on, and get to run the 3rd party stuff (that apple sucks at) we want on them.

It's not as if Apple is all of a sudden going to turn around and offer compelling essential services (whether this bodes well long term remains to be seen). Siri will not catch up to google or amazon's. If the Homepod is to be worthwhile it too has to offer seamless integration with iOS devices (to include apple tv) and Macs.

 

[WatchFromAfar]

Pretty sure I read that the beam-forming will work only with iMusic tracks which Apple has re-encoded to take advantage. Not sure about this, but makes sense given Apple's focus on their walled garden.

You have been lied to if that's what you believe. Apple Music has not recoded all the music of the last 60 years that they will be offering on Apple Music.

 

[sofila]

It has the ability to adjust itself automatically to your room to improve sound. It has real-time modeling. No other speaker I know of (outside of professional live sound reinforcement) does this.

Probably, but you may want to give it a try personally, I hope.

 

[MistrSynistr]

The only thing we need to know is if it supports is being used as a wireless speaker for home theater.

 

[acblue94]

While I appreciate not everyone will have this, but I guarantee you and Jony Ive that my $5k+ Bowers & Wilkins speakers and Yamaha amp will sound infinitely better than some SoundPod speakers.

I would hope so if you paid $5K. Don’t you agree. Not the smartest comment on here.

 

[Bswails]

I'm apprehensive about this product, purely because Siri is still such a mess. I have a feeling it will be great hardware let down by sloppy software.

I’m a proud supporter of Apple..however having to say “hey” every time to activate Siri IMO is not exactly an assistant. If Apple can figure out how we can just say “Siri” and drop the “hey” to activate it would be what I need to really have all of my smart home products connect via HomeKit and Siri..I like just being able to say “Alexa” and it activates. I’m holding out faith..but if I should buy anymore home kit products I will make sure Alexa is also built in!

 

[riverfreak]

Apple is a sales company. They spend upward of $2 billion a year on advertising. Telling us how good they are and how much we want their products. People tend to buy what they've heard of, especially if they've heard it's good. Market dominance (which they don't have but people think they do) only comes about through lots and lots of advertising. Or do you really think you've been completely impartial in you decision making all these years.

Uh, you missed the point entirely.

 

[MistrSynistr]

I'm honestly hoping it fails horribly so that Apple is forced to work hard on improving Siri rather than just giving her a few more options each year.

With the financial resources available and being first to the game with this, Siri should embarrass it's competitors by now. It shouldn't even be a discussion. There should be "Siri", then everything else.

 

[kemal]

Can one of those accounts be Amazon Prime?

 

[RogerWilco]

Lol, some of those icons...

I am happy that Apple will apparently cater for situations such as ‘wet and windy balloon time’, ‘tiny man in the garden hour’, and ‘fried egg with popcorn day’.

These are surely the hieroglyphics of the present, destined to be uncovered and debated by historians of the future as to their meaning...

‘So when the wifi symbol is blue it means ‘on’... when it’s grey... it means... ‘off’?’
-‘There appears to be conflicting evidence on that actually!’

Yes indeed, it appears that icon design is a lost art at Sir Ive's Apple.

 

[millerlite]

As a father of a 4 month old, I just want Siri to shut up when I try to turn on or off lights in the bedroom. I now use the phillips hue dimmer switch remote control to turn on and off our bedroom light, because literally anything else will wake the baby. Turning the lamp's light switch off wakes her, and Siri saying, 'nighty night, don't let the data bugs bite' is definitely a problem. A problem that shouldn't need a solution at this point!!

 

[beanbaguk]

I would hope so if you paid $5K. Don’t you agree. Not the smartest comment on here.

It was a facetious comment....

Put it into context, I don't want some cheap bluetooth speaker to listen to music. I just want a Siri interface that allows me to tell my Apple TV what to do. In this case, play music through my HiFi system.

I'm not suggesting it's the smartest comment on here, but it's certainly relevant.
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I have harmony support via homebrige. It can be set up to run on a raspberry pi and so far it has worked flawlessly.

Could you PM me details on this? I'm very interested to learn how you did this!

 

[Chupa Chupa]

It has the ability to adjust itself automatically to your room to improve sound. It has real-time modeling. No other speaker I know of (outside of professional live sound reinforcement) does this.

A/V receivers for years have included a mic so the user can fine tuned for a room's acoustics. It's hardly new tech. Other stand-alone table speakers have also had built-in tech to sound like towers. Amar Bose was a pioneer in this field decades ago. But again, I'm not arguing that the HomePod won't sound great. I saying it at this point it doesn't really offer anything new in the field of smart speakers. It is priced like a mid-range table speaker -- BTW it's not stereo, it's just a single mono speaker with simulated stereo. You would need two HomePods for true stereo. At $700/pr it's a very expensive smaller speaker so it damn better sound good. But it won't be the first damn good sounding small speaker.

 

[beanbaguk]

A/V receivers for years have included a mic so the user can fine tuned for a room's acoustics. It's hardly new tech. Other stand-alone table speakers have also had built-in tech to sound like towers. Amar Bose was a pioneer in this field decades ago. But again, I'm not arguing that the HomePod won't sound great. I saying it at this point it doesn't really offer anything new in the field of smart speakers. It is priced like a mid-range table speaker -- BTW it's not stereo, it's just a single mono speaker with simulated stereo. You would need two HomePods for true stereo. At $700/pr it's a very expensive smaller speaker so it damn better sound good. But it won't be the first damn good sounding small speaker.

Exactly this. Plus as mentioned, it won't compete with any proper HiFi equipment. As mentioned, it'll sound good no doubt, but no way near on par with any kind of high end or probably middle end HiFi.
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In the hypothetical scenario where Apple could either release the HomePod in February or could have diverted some resources to also shipping a HomePad 'Dot' alongside it which would have shifted the timeline back several months, I'm sure almost everybody would agree that the former option is the better. Ideally, Apple would also ship a HomePod 'Dot' later this year.

Though there might a bit of a clash with the market positioning. The HomePod costs significantly more than the, eg, the Amazon Echo. Apple largely justifies this with the better audio quality. Releasing a HomePod 'Dot', which by definition would have worse audio puts Apple a bit in a quandary. If it charges similar prices as for the Echo Dot, the price difference between the HomePod and the HomePod 'Dot' would be very large, only 'justified' by the audio quality. Many people might look at the big savings and get the HomePod 'Dot' instead of the full-size HomePod. If, on the other hand, Apple charges let's say half the price of the HomePod for the HomePod 'Dot', it would sell a product much more expensive than the Echo Dot without any clear justification for the price difference. This is a mild version of what has been sometimes called a strategy tax.

Interesting post, and it'll be interest to see how Apple play this one out. In some ways it's very frustrating, but I've invested heavily into the Apple infrastructure for my home cinema and HiFi. Networking, HomeKit, AppleTV, airplay, etc, but now I've lost the choice to use my own speakers which I've invested heavily in.... here's hoping for a "dot"!

 

[acctman]

I will be surprised if HomePod is not locked down to Apple only eco-system. Requesting Siri to play music will be locked to Apple Music only, currently siri can not play request music in other apps

 

[millerlite]

The only problem I have with this is, Siri on the wrist only activates when I turn my wrist and the screen turns on. While this works for a lot of scenarios, times where I'm carrying something (laundry, etc) and can't turn my wrist make a scenario for a Dot-like device perfect. Otherwise I totally agree, I love having Siri on my wrist since it goes everywhere with me.

Exactly this. I have a newborn and I'm always carrying her from room to room, so I can't turn my wrist to utilize Siri ever. My phone is in my pocket, which also can't activate Siri, so having an 'always on' Siri is exactly what I need.

 

[deanthedev]

A/V receivers for years have included a mic so the user can fine tuned for a room's acoustics. It's hardly new tech. Other stand-alone table speakers have also had built-in tech to sound like towers. Amar Bose was a pioneer in this field decades ago. But again, I'm not arguing that the HomePod won't sound great. I saying it at this point it doesn't really offer anything new in the field of smart speakers. It is priced like a mid-range table speaker -- BTW it's not stereo, it's just a single mono speaker with simulated stereo. You would need two HomePods for true stereo. At $700/pr it's a very expensive smaller speaker so it damn better sound good. But it won't be the first damn good sounding small speaker.

Not even close to being the same thing. At all. The HomePod is light years beyond what Sonos or others can do (which is literally nothing more than setting up an EQ based on the frequency response of a room).

 

[millerlite]

I’m a proud supporter of Apple..however having to say “hey” every time to activate Siri IMO is not exactly an assistant. If Apple can figure out how we can just say “Siri” and drop the “hey” to activate it would be what I need to really have all of my smart home products connect via HomeKit and Siri..I like just being able to say “Alexa” and it activates. I’m holding out faith..but if I should buy anymore home kit products I will make sure Alexa is also built in!

I'm really waiting for these digital assistants to stop using their own names and start letting us name them. I would much rather have a smart speaker that uses a name that I create. I believe it would be more secure, right? Nobody would be able to yell 'hey siri' in a party or the subway and see phones light up if we all had our own names for him/her.

 

[cjbryce]

That's ASSUMING the HomePod actually supports input connections - other than bluetooth - that would make this possible.

Erm, since the Apple TV is my only input source for the telly in the bedroom, then Airplay takes care of that.

 

[macduke]

I just assumed it would have multiple user recognition. If it doesn't, it's even more useless than I originally thought. That should be required at this point.

 

[Mtmspa]

I have a pair of studio monitors at home that sound far better than the Apple HomePod. I don't need to listen to it to know that. Physics doesn't allow a speaker that big to have a proper range. The problem is they don't have a smart assistant like Siri or bluetooth connectivity. I think the point 'farewelwilliams' was making is that a dot allows people to decouple the smart assistant from the speaker giving you the best of both worlds.

I like the idea of a HomePod but for that kind of money you can buy yourself some really nice bookshelf speakers and an Amazon Dot and end up with far superior sound. For those of us in the Apple ecosystem it would be nice to have a more integrated product but I'm not willing to sacrifice sound quality for it.

Hell with freeze over before a google or amazon device will ever be in my house.
[doublepost=1516637393][/doublepost]

I'm apprehensive about this product, purely because Siri is still such a mess. I have a feeling it will be great hardware let down by sloppy software.

I use Siri daily and it works great for me.

 

[Foggydog]

You are correct that it hasn't been released BUT people have heard the HomePod, back in June people at WWDC were given previews of the HomePod and it's sound, it was even compared against the Echo and Sonos.

"HomePod puts vocals in a direct center channel, and beams ambient sounds around for what Apple says is a more omnidirectional music experience. I walked around, and it sounded good from multiple parts of the room. Apple said HomePod can separate vocals and other parts of the music via Apple Music, but that more recent recordings will perform the separation better […]

HomePod came off as bolder and more vivid than Sonos Play:3 in the experience I tried, and a lot better than Amazon Echo. I’d also say the music sounded consistently vivid and crisp in a quiet space, more so than the Sonos and Amazon comparisons on-hand." - CNET

"The HomePod however, sounded crisp and bright no matter the musical genre fed through it — it rendered The Eagles as well it did Kendrick Lamar. As a reminder, there’s a huge woofer and seven tweeters inside, all meant to make audio sound as vivid as possible no matter where you are in a room. It works. The PLAY:3 was generally very good, but audio felt remarkably closed off when I wasn’t sitting right in front of it. If listening to the HomePod was like listening to a CD, then audio through the Echo sounded like AM radio." - Engadget

"As Sia’s The Greatest played out, the HomePod sounded impressive: strong bass rang out – which was perhaps the overriding audio takeaway for the speaker – but the vocals still seemed sharp and crisp.

In comparison, the Sonos Play:3 appeared uncharacteristically flat, while the Amazon Echo felt almost pedestrian.

We listened to Superstition by Stevie Wonder and DNA by Kendrick Lamar. Both sounded good on the Sonos but appeared punchier and louder on the HomePod. As we moved around the room, the HomePod managed to project in every direction, with no discernible sweet spot.

We also heard a pair of HomePods playing a live recording of Hotel California by The Eagles. The attention to detail was striking, with different instruments sounding discretely realised. Did we feel like we were at the concert? Maybe not, but it did sound powerful." - What HiFi?

https://9to5mac.com/2017/06/06/homepod-review-sound-quality-audio-quality-hifi/

The Verge even wrote an article about it:

https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/5/15743886/homepod-audio-quality-demo-echo-sonos-bass

Yes it's early days it hasn't even been released yet but you can bet that it's not going to sound bad and it certainly won't sound anything less than what these reviews have said. My guess with the whole delay is so that Apple can add new features such as the one's that have been talked about in this thread.

How do you expect the Sonos play 5 to sound compared to the HomePod? I understand that are at different price points, but have you heard the HomePod next to the play 5? If not, will you do a comparison between the two?
Thank you.

 

[albebaubles]

I’m a proud supporter of Apple..however having to say “hey” every time to activate Siri IMO is not exactly an assistant. If Apple can figure out how we can just say “Siri” and drop the “hey” to activate it would be what I need to really have all of my smart home products connect via HomeKit and Siri..I like just being able to say “Alexa” and it activates. I’m holding out faith..but if I should buy anymore home kit products I will make sure Alexa is also built in!

I wish we could assign a personal term for Siri. 'Computer' makes more sense to me than 'siri'